Zero chill, & not much I, either

Oh, bwahahaha!

It turns out that Microsoft’s inability to read the world around it isn’t limited to its CEO sticking his foot in his mouth in front of very large crowds of tech women. Because they launched a chatbot on social media platforms that so misfired they had to shut it down in a matter of hours.

Tay was styled “the AI with zero chill” and was apparently supposed to “learn” what to say through interactions with her target audience, the 19-to-24-year-old set. This was an attempt to seem more with-it in terms of customer service. Because those young ‘uns just can’t tell the difference between a human and a robot, generally speaking.

Apparently it occurred to no one on Microsoft’s Technology and Research and Bing teams that social media positively swarms with trolls, most of whom don’t really like any type of corporate PR efforts, which they rightly equate with scamming attempts. Therefore, they didn’t give poor little Tay any filters when it came to repeating whatever she heard out on the wild, wild web.

I mean, she's the ultimate blonde.

So in less than 24 hours, Tay was a full-blown racist, Hitler-loving potty mouth, inviting people to fuck her without apparently any sense of sarcasm. Viz.:

How is it that they couldn’t have foreseen this? It’s like they’re completely unaware of the troll feeding frenzies that always swirl up whenever one of these bloated corporations tries to appear “transparent” via social media. I mean every damned time. There is no escape from this.

And I seriously don’t know what’s up with Microsoft—they just don’t seem to be able to learn anything from their constituency. I ask you: where's the intelligence, artificial or otherwise? 

They just keep spitballing crap they think is going to make them look trendy without having any sense of how idiotic they actually do appear. They’re like a 45-year-old growing a soul patch and wearing a hipster hat. With his Dockers and Birkenstocks.

As for me, I’m going to make another bowl of popcorn and wait for what’s next out of their chute.